a lovely detail and were bafflingly cut
off. Occasionally he thought he noticed a recurrence of the same
fragment. Murmurs came from behind the piano. He looked cautiously.
Alicia was making faces of alarm and annoyance. She whispered: "Oh
dear! ... It's no use! ... We're all wrong, I'm sure!" Tom kept his
eyes on the page in front of him, doggedly playing. Then Edwin was
conscious of dissonances. And then the music stopped.

"Now, Alicia," her father protested mildly, "you mustn't be nervous."

"Nervous!" exclaimed Alicia. "Tom's just as nervous as I am! So he
needn't talk." She was as red as a cock's crest.

Tom was not talking. He pointed several times violently to a place on
Alicia's half of the open book--she was playing the bass part. "There!
There!" The music recommenced.

"She's always nervous like that," Janet whispered kindly, "when any
one's here. But she doesn't like to be told."

"She plays splendidly," Edwin responded. "Do you play?"

Janet shook her head.

"Yes, she does," Charlie whispered.

"Keep on, darling. You're at the end now." Edwin heard a low, stern
voice. That must be the voice of Hilda. A second later, he looked
across, and surprised her glance, which was intensely fixed on himself.
She dropped her eyes quickly; he also.

Then he felt by the nature of the chords that the piece was closing.
The music ceased. Mr Orgreave clapped his hands. "Bravo! Bravo!"

"Why," cried Charlie to the performers, "you weren't within ten bars of
each other!" And Edwin wondered how Charlie could tell that. As for
him, he did not know enough of music to be able to turn over the pages
for others. He felt himself to be an ignoramus among a company of
brilliant experts.

"Well," said Mr Orgreave, "I suppose we may talk a bit now. It's more
than our place is worth to breathe aloud while these Rubinsteins are
doing Beethoven!" He looked at Edwin, who grinned.

"Oh! My word!" smiled Mrs Orgreave, supporting her hand.

"Beethoven, is it?" Edwin muttered. He was acquainted only with the
name, and had never heard it pronounced as Mr Orgreave pronounced it.

"One symphony a night!" Mr Orgreave said, with irony. "And we're only
at the second, it seems. Seven more to come; What do you think of that,
Edwin?"

"Very fine!"

"Let's have the `Lost Chord,' Janet," Mr Orgreave suggested.

There was a protesting chorus of "Oh, dad!"

"Very well! Very well!" the father murmured,